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What a fantastic argument against this kind of “philantropy”. Relying on rich people to help you is a fundamentally flawed principle.

I think it argues the opposite.

The school was likely a failure. I couldn't find any stats on success of children but I find that telling as if it was lifting kids out of poverty effectively it would have been advertised. Its probably just not effective and the money could be better spent elsewhere.

Were this a public project it would have persisted indefinitely and have a lobbying constituency to keep setting money on fire.

We want more failed experiments. If committing to a venture where there is no off ramp if it doesn't work, no one will invest

Failing or not, it still has an ongoing obligation to its enrollees. A kid attending the school doesn't really care if the school is meeting its particular metric goals. That kid is still upset that their school is closing and their education and social life is disrupted.

I also don't think that "the school was likely a failure" is a claim we can make in the modern world. Zuck (and other tech CEOs) is/are very clearly fleeing visible commitment to diversity initiatives.

"We will give out a bunch of cash to people who no longer have a school" is better than nothing, but absolutely nothing mandates that this happen the next time.

From the article

> CZI plans to donate $50 million to the communities and families affected by the closure, the school said in its note this week.

Again, the point is no one is going to experiment if you can't wind it down.

I don't know if it's a failure but I know the 300m zuck spent in Newark schools was a huge failure and waste of money and very well documented. If it was a success they would be making a big show and not shutting it down

Right. And I mentioned that in my post. I'm glad that Zuck is doing this but he is not obligated to do so, which is one of the perils of this sort of program funded by billionaires.

… or any other funding entity?

With the government we have a degree of democratic control over decision-making. We also have laws that limit the degree with which the government can make capricious decisions.

Zuck has no such limitations.

like the government? they better not be shutting down failing schools, leaving the kids in the lurch. but instead they should research why the schools are failing and figure out how to fix the problem. a private entity may not have such an obligation, but we as a society sure do.

i believe many countries went through a period of consolidation where many smaller (failing) schools were closed as the population became more mobile with cars.

Put another way, at least this experiment actually cared about the outcome and did something about it.

Generally, there's far too little feedback and accountability when it comes to public policy intentions vs. outcomes. Our government (US) policies and program are basically running on an open loop, no one is ever comparing outcomes against goals/intentions.

Experimentation requires looking at results of the experiments.

In civilised countries the education of children is not subject to the whims of rich people's "experiments"

Finland is an example of such a country.

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2018/09/10-reasons-why-finla...

I’m fascinated that you have yet to consider the fact that what you’re talking about is experimenting with children as the subjects. Or that, maybe that’s why there’s so many guard rails around, you know, experimentation in this space.

You know government programs are experiments too, just without the feedback? Do you think anyone knows for certain what the best education system is? Just because it's what the government decided doesn't mean it's not fundamentally experimental in the sense of having unknown outcomes. Maybe it just seems that way to you? I don't really know what to say, maybe you think education is solved and there's no way the government could be doing it better? That seems like a hard belief to hold with something as complicated as education.

I don't appreciate the accusation that I'm not thinking about the children. It is precisely because I care about the children that I care about the possibility of a better system for them.

Instead of funding a school have they tried money to lift people out of poverty? I wonder what the success rate on that is.

Looking at lottery winners not great long term.

> Were this a public project it would have persisted indefinitely and have a lobbying constituency to keep setting money on fire.

And, more importantly, keep going on with a strategy that isn't actually helping the kids in the program... I can easily look past the government wasting an extra $50M/yr here and there, because that barely matters in the grand scheme of government waste, fraud, and inefficiency. But getting poor educational and life-preparation outcomes for generations of kids because of inertia is an entirely greater concern, at least to me.

The problem with your second paragraph is that it is made up theory.

Goverment projects do actually frequently end. Sometimes for good reasons, other times for wrong reasons - like conservatives not liking it when they work and are effective.

But it is not true they would all be infinite.

This is easily searchable. Here is a quick answer from Claude.

> Regarding agency terminations through sunset provisions, in practice these have been rare. Despite the widespread adoption of sunset laws at the state level in the 1970s and 1980s (with 35 states enacting such laws), "few agencies have actually been terminated under these sunset provisions." At the federal level, Congress has used sunset provisions more sparingly and typically for specific statutes rather than entire agencies. [Britannica](https://www.britannica.com/topic/sunset-law)

As the saying goes, there's nothing as permanent as a temporary government program

We can optimize chances for successful experiments, and I doubt optimization involves having a lot of hands on by tech CEOs or the wives of tech CEOs (Zuckerberg and Bezos wives’ come to mind, but there are many cases). The Gates foundation and others that have had success in various areas are relatively hands off, or “bottom up” in their approach. One can spend money to feel good, or one can spend money to do good. A lot of tech CEO/tech wife CEO philanthropy is the former.

Strong disagree, the failure is from no one having incentives or control. There is no bottom up if you have career unelected bureaucrats running the show. That's why it's in bad shape now. I'm thinking things like teachers unions that fought like hell to keep schools closed during COVID even when it became obvious that the virus was not especially harmful to children, parents wanted them open and incredible harm was being done. This is also why schools have grown administrative staff so much over the last few decades. You think an executive would allow for that?

I don't know the answer is necessarily top down but someone needs to make the calls and have ownership.

> "career unelected bureaucrats"

Still sounds like a magic spell, as the first time I've heard it from Musk. Practically everyone on some sort of management position is a "career unelected bureaucrat". Electing each other on properly career-limited and non-bureaucratic positions sounds as much fun as cutting each-other's hair and fixing each-other's windows, if you know what I mean.

> You think an executive would allow for that?

Executives have a vested interest in as little-as-possible service at as high-as-possible price. Plenty of private schools do worse than most public schools and the only reason they don't do worse is... drum roll, please... career unelected bureaucrats!

> I'm thinking things like teachers unions that fought like hell to keep schools closed during COVID even when it became obvious that the virus was not especially harmful to children"

"to children"??? You think teachers are children? The president at the time was hyping the dangers of covid and blaming it on China, he's still blaming everything on China, well half of it, the other half goes to "career unelected bureaucrats".

In case you haven't been following, there have been massive closures of government-funded programs over the last few months too, so I don't think relying on those is any better. At the end of the day, all you can do is make the best choice when opportunities are presented, and roll with the punches when things change.

Edit: grammar fix

At least with the government we have a degree of democratic control over outcomes. "Hope a billionaire doesn't get bored or otherwise change their mind" is considerably less stable, even if government programs are not 100% guarantees.

> "Hope a billionaire doesn't get bored or otherwise change their mind"

I wish this didn't apply to the person in charge of the government.

> there have been massive closures of government-funded programs over the last few months

Sure, if more than 50% of the country votes for being shafted.

So, either they surrender to a despot, or they just were opportunists all the time and the philanthropy really didn't matter to them personally?

Poor people. No matter the money.

My gut says it’s the former.

At the mercy of their whims, what truly enlightened era of new-age Victorianism we seem to be entering

I view these things as a way to make up for not paying adequate tax rates by paying for the things they felt best about in what tax should have paid for.

Flaws with this setup aside, I wouldn't feel good about building a Trump compatible school.. And of course the expectation that they continue is just precedent/norms which means less than nothing in show power by arbitrary disruption land.

How does contemporary billionaire philanthropy stack up against robber barrons? Any neat musk muesums.

Regardless of whether one agrees with the school's originally stated aims and social motives, the oddly timed shutting down of this institution, on which who knows how many families probably came to depend, absolutely reeks of chickenshit cowardly kowtowing to a new ideological line. That total lack of spine is contemptible, all ideological questions aside.

They could have easily kept to their original promises and let the school run for decades with the kind of fortune they possess, but they had to overtly shut it down after making some conspicuous other changes that speak volumes about a very specific type of sucking up.

You're a fucking mega multi-billionaire Zuckerberg, what are you so damned afraid of to pander so absurdly?

Even many of the conniving so-called robber barons of the previous century at least stuck to their philanthropic guns in the face of political administrative changes throughout the years they were alive.

What they were doing appeared to be well regarded. They could have brought in other funders rather than closing. But yes, it wasn't about the money, I'm sure.

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